Practice case study 1 — warfare in the Thirty Years' War

Answer

A Bohemian military entrepreneur who raised huge mercenary armies (up to ~100,000 men) for Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. He was assassinated in 1634 when he became too powerful.

Answer

Organised cash and supplies demanded from occupied territory to fund an army — the main way armies paid for themselves ('war must feed war').

Answer

Feeding and paying an army from whatever region it occupied, through plunder and requisitioning — devastating the local civilian population.

Answer

Mobile field artillery, combined-arms tactics, and lighter, more manoeuvrable/shallower formations that could fire faster and move quickly.

Answer

An early Imperial/Catholic victory near Prague that crushed the Bohemian revolt; showed older deep formations still winning early in the war.

Answer

Gustavus Adolphus's Swedish army destroyed the Imperial forces, showcasing his mobile artillery and flexible lines — a landmark of the new tactics.

Answer

Sweden won the battle, but Gustavus Adolphus was killed, robbing the Protestant side of its greatest commander.

Answer

Fortified towns held the money, food and river crossings. Controlling star-fort fortresses let an army dominate whole provinces and levy contributions.

Answer

Imperial forces stormed and burned the Protestant city; roughly 20,000–25,000 inhabitants died. It became the war's most notorious atrocity and a symbol of civilian devastation.

Answer

Plunder = soldiers directly seizing food, valuables and livestock. Requisitioning = the more organised forcing of local people to hand over supplies, quarters and cash.

Answer

Gunpowder tactics and ever-larger armies that had to feed themselves, campaigning for three decades, produced unprecedented cost and destruction — some regions lost a third or more of their people.

Answer

Early Modern states lacked the tax systems and banks to fund war on this scale, so renting an army from a private contractor pushed the up-front cost and risk onto the entrepreneur.